by Thianna D
“Which show?” Charity asked.
“Glee.”
“I’m not watching Glee.”
“I want cartoons,” Jack whined.
Zach was on them in a second. His mind was full of worry and the last thing he wanted to do was listen to a house full of bickering kids. “Go play at the playground,” he said “And all of you keep an eye on Jack.”
“Come on, Jack,” Charity said.
Jordan sat on the swing and dangled her legs. She couldn’t even be bothered to push it. Where was her Mom? Had she really done something bad? Maybe it was time to say something.
“Hi,” Buddy said from behind her. “How come you’re just sitting there?”
Jordan shrugged. “My mom went bowling but she didn’t come home.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I just know she was talkin’ to someone about being bad.”
“Maybe she was jokin.”
“She wasn’t.”
“How do you know?”
“Cos I tricked her in to letting me watch television when I was home sick. I said I’d tell Daddy.”
“Jordan!” Avvy said.
“You heard that?” Jordan asked sheepishly.
“I sure did. Do you know why mom’s late?”
“Not exactly.”
“You’re selfish ,Jordan! Go tell Daddy what you heard.”
“No, he’ll be mad.”
“I’m telling then.” Avvy ran as fast as she could to tell her Dad.
“Slow down Avvy,” Zach said. “Talk slowly and tell me what you know.”
She blurted out exactly what she heard at the playground. “Where’s Mom, Daddy? She’s always here. What bad thing would she do?”
“Don’t you worry about that, Avvy. You go and tell all the other kids to come home. I’ll make a few calls.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
Zach ran a hand down his daughter’s cheek. “Everything will be fine.”
What bad thing could she have been talking about? Drinking maybe? Jordan had shocked him. He always saw her as the baby, the sometimes naughty, tomboy, uncomplicated one. She had blackmailed her mother. Zach paced the kitchen. He would have to deal with that later. First he had to find his wife. The only thing he could think of to do was call Brent.
“Hi Jonathon?” he said.
“Um, no this is Lelo. Jonathon and Brent have both had to go somewhere. There’s been an incident,” he said. “I’m sure Brent will contact you when he gets back.” He rang off.
Zach stood there staring at the phone rerunning Lelo’s words in his head. If Brent’s incident was big enough to need Jonathon, and he was going to call him when he got back, and his wife and all her friends were missing. Oh hell, what had Erin done? The incident obviously involved his wife and her new friends. “Please God let them be all right.”
“Go to your room, Jordan,” he said when his youngest daughter tiptoed into the house hoping she wouldn’t be seen.
Jordan ran.
Chapter 9
The girls weren’t allowed to get back into the car. Instead they had to sit on the ground in front of the car where they could be seen.
“Are we waiting for Brent Carmichael?” Jen asked.
“Yes we are,” the male officer said.
“That’s gonna take some time,” Carol said.
“It might,” the male officer added.
Carol started to get up.
“Sit down,” the woman officer said.
“If I was in jail, you’d feed me wouldn’t you?” Carol asked.
“Yeah, you’d have to feed us. That’s abuse to starve people,” Sienna said.
“Both of you sit still and be quiet, or I’ll handcuff you and you can wait in the police car.”
Erin put her hand up like she was in school.
“Yes?” The policewoman asked.
“Just wanted to put it out there that we’re a bit hungry and there’s a bucket of perfectly good chicken in the car.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Erin put her hand up again, making Carol start giggling again.
“Yes?” The policewoman said to Erin. She pointed at Carol. “You be quiet.”
“So stern,” Carol mouthed to the side of Erin’s head.
“Also putting it out there that God doesn’t like us to waste food,” Erin said.
The officers looked at each other. The male officer shrugged. “If they’re eating, their mouths will be in use for a while.”
“True.” She leaned into the car and retrieved the bucket, handing it to the quietest of them, Jen, to distribute. “If you’re not quiet, I’ll take it back.”
“Thank you,” Erin said.
Erin looked to each side of her. On the right, Carol, or Moonbeam, as she’d always think of her now, was dozing. Her tummy was full and she wasn’t allowed to use her mouth, so maybe her mind had shut down so it didn’t have to deal with how much trouble she was in. Half her luck. To the left of her was Jen, who she noticed, with horror, was crying. “You ok?” she mouthed.
“My kids,” Jen mouthed back.
“I sent Zach a text. He’ll have them until Brock gets home.”
Jen nodded. “Thank you. This is gonna be bad,” she mouthed.
“Uh-huh. But it was fun,” Erin whispered.
Jen nodded.
Sienna blinked away tears as well, until her eyes didn’t open and then she too was asleep.
Erin sat up straight when she heard a car coming. Salvation or retribution or a little of both. Whatever it was, it had arrived. Jonathon got out first and his look said it all. They were in for it big time.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
She thought she saw a tear in his eye. He must have known what they’d be in for and it would be bad.
“What were you ladies thinking?” Brent asked.
Erin looked at Jen. This was a stern side of Brent that she hadn’t seen before. He was always so helpful and kind. “Um, I, we, I don’t know what to say,” Erin said. Carol was still sleeping. How could they tell him that it was Carol’s turn and they had pretended they were hippies?
“I’m sorry, Brent,” she said.
“Just stay there while I sort this out,” he said.
Erin and Jen watched closely, trying to read lips as he spoke with the officers. Whatever he said worked, because the officers tipped their hats and walked back to their car. He’d managed to get them out of trouble, at least the law type of trouble.
“Thank you, Brent!” Erin said. At least she wouldn’t have to tell Zach that she’d gotten a five hundred-dollar fine that their family could ill afford.
“Don’t thank me, Erin. I told the officers that we have our own brand of justice and that you will be facing the board. You broke the law. We try to keep a low profile in Corbin’s Bend. The board, and I, won’t allow you to get away with this disgraceful display.
“Are we going to get a public spanking?” Jen asked with horror.
“At least. Charles is going to ask your partners to meet us at the community center. He’s called an emergency meeting of the board.”
“What about our children?” Jen asked.
“I will make sure your children are well cared for. Most of them, at the moment, are at Erin and Zach’s, so we’ll more than likely have somebody mind them there. Like I said, we’re a family. I just need to change your car battery, Sienna, and we’ll get going.”
“I don’t understand,” Zach said. “How does a bowling afternoon end up with the girls in so much trouble?”
“Beats me,” Brock said. “This isn’t like Jen. She’s a good girl. I barely have to take her to task about anything.”
Sienna’s husband, Toby, shook his head. “We don’t do DD so I feel a bit out of it here. I spank my wife because she likes it and I like to spank her, but I don’t punish her, because she’s never needed it. I can’t believe though that this is her doing. It just doesn’t sound like her, and she was driving. She
wouldn’t smoke weed and then drive.”
“They’re all at fault,” Zach said. “We just need to figure out why.”
“I know why,” Crystal said. “This has Carol’s name all over it.”
“She’s into drugs?” Toby asked, not doing a very good job of keeping the shock and horror from his face.
“No! Carol isn’t like that. She’s loving and kind and the best mother that any kid could ever want,” she said. “But she has issues with the loss of her mother when she was young. Her mom grew up in the hippie era and Carol has this thing about it. She thinks if she knows how her mother felt she’ll be closer to her somehow.”
“Wow. Poor girl,” Brock said.
“Yeah. Trouble is, no matter what we need, we can’t break the law to get it,” Crystal said sadly.
“That’s right,” Toby said.
“It doesn’t help to know though that our other halves are going to face the board,” Zach said.
“It breaks my heart,” Crystal said. “I feel like what we have is between us. I’m dreading that I’ll probably have to punish her in front of the town.”
“Me, too,” Brock said, trying to comfort his friend and colleague. “But, they’re punished for a reason; so they’ll not repeat what they’ve done, and let’s not forget what could have happened. Sienna was driving. What if the car hadn’t gotten a flat battery?” he said.
The room was silent while they contemplated the consequences of Sienna driving while stoned.
“We’re home,” Brent said.
Erin’s eyes sprang open. Her head thumped and nausea turned her tummy. She didn’t know what she was most scared about, the board or facing Zach. “I need to be sick,” she said, holding a hand over her mouth.
“Take some deep breaths,” Brent said.
“This isn’t home,” she said, looking out of the window. “I need to talk to Zach.”
“He’s inside. They’re all inside.”
The other girls were wide awake now and very aware of the mess they were in. They blindly followed Brent up stairs and along a hallway until they reached the room where the emergency board meeting would be held. They were lead to a small room that was separated from the room where the meeting was already convened. Even with the mess she was in, Erin was over the moon to see Zach.
“Oh thank God you’re alright,” he said, gathering her up into his arms as she ran across the room to him.
She sobbed pitifully into the crook of his neck. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“We’ll talk about it when we’re alone,” he said “I can’t do it now, not with an audience, and not with the result of the board meeting hanging over our heads.”
“I don’t want to be spanked in front of everyone in town,” she said. “Do I have to be bare?”
“I don’t know, honey, but whatever happens you have to remember...” Zach wiped a tear from his own eye.
“What?”
“That I love you, and whatever happens, we’ll get through it together.”
“I love you, Zach.” She did and she believed that he loved her, but she could see the devastation in his eyes. Erin hadn't meant to but she'd managed to destroy the trust that Zach had in her again. She could see it in his eyes. Could she get it back? That was the question.
The girls had to face the board together. They stood shoulder to shoulder, like soldiers at arms, while Brent read out the charges and asked for their plea. Erin thought she might actually throw up. Each of them in turn pleaded guilty and waited with bated breath for the outcome. When it finally came, Erin sagged, thinking she might faint.
“We have never had to deliberate on a problem such as this before. I would imagine for the crime of buying marijuana and smoking it in a public place, the penalty would to be forty swats with the paddle, delivered by your husband or partner,” Charles said. “However, I wish to say something to you ladies. You are mothers. You lead your family in a way that no other person can. You may or may not answer to your husbands or partners but the key relationship in your lives is between you and your children. They watch you. They learn from you. Whatever you do right, or whatever you do wrong, they are paying attention and storing it in their memory banks forever. Ask yourselves, do you want to collect your children from a police station because they have done what you did today? Do you want the other young people of this town to look up to you and to mimic the behaviors that you modeled today because they heard on the grapevine that you got away with it?” He gave the women a stern look. “With that in mind, we are splitting your punishment. The board and I have decided that as well as twenty public strokes with the paddle, all of you will spend four hours, of every Saturday for the next six months, doing community service. You will do something that will work towards leading the children and young people in this town in the right direction instead of the wrong. Are you all agreeable to this ruling?”
Erin looked at all the women to see their reactions, but mostly Carol, hoping she wouldn’t argue. It wouldn’t help the situation. They’d just lost twenty strokes but if Moonbeam made a curtain call, they would end up in more trouble for sure. When Carol nodded, they all nodded. Erin knew the ruling was fair. They knew what they were getting into when they moved here. Brent was right, they hadn’t been good role models for their children. That had to change.
“The physical part of your punishment will take place this Saturday evening at five pm, and the room will be open to all adults over the age of eighteen who wish to witness the punishment,” Brent said.
Zach hadn’t punished her that night, which considering what she’d done, was unnerving. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “Why you have to buck the system? We’ve had this discussion over and over. I thought you wanted this lifestyle.”
“I do. I love it. But the very thing that makes me love it is the thing that I hate.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“I know,” she answered. “I wish I understood it enough myself so I could explain it to you.”
“Start at the beginning,” Zach said. “What is it that you like?”
“I like the order,” she said. “I like the smoothness and the way I always know what’s going to happen next. The routine. And I love when you take me in hand. I love that I can trust you to keep the children and me safe. I love that you are so thoughtful and kind.”
“And what do you not like?”
“It would be nice to not know what’s going to happen every minute of the day. Routine is good for kids, I know that. But our lives are so ordered that I could almost live without waking up in the morning.”
“That’s not true!” Zach said. “When you were missing, or we thought you were missing this afternoon? This whole house was wrong. The girls wanted their mom, I wanted my wife. It wasn’t just because I wanted to cook dinner or lay beneath me. I wanted you, all of you, in our house making it warm.”
“You won’t stop me seeing my friends, will you?”
“No, of course not. I’m pretty sure once you’ve been though the public punishment you will all be deterred from making the same mistake again.”
“We just wanted to have some fun,” she said.
“I know. I hope it was worth it.”
“Aren’t you going to spank me, Zach?”
“Yes. This Saturday at five pm. In front of the whole town.”
“What’ll we do about Jordan?”
“She will have to be punished, too, but I will take care of that.”
The children were all being minded a long way from the community center where the girls were all awaiting their fate with their partners. Erin sat on Zach’s knee. The warmth of his body underneath her trembling legs, soothing her. Of course he was as nervous as she. He was the one that had to deliver the twenty whacks of the paddle.
Brent had been in to talk to them and was waiting outside the door for Carol and Crystal. They’d been standing in the corner together. Crystal held Carol tightly in her arms, smoothing her lover
’s hair to calm her, kissing her forehead and speaking softly while Carol rested her head on the taller woman’s shoulder. Erin couldn’t hear what they were saying but she could guess that it was similar to the conversation she and Zach had over and over for the last couple of days. Sienna was also wrapped in her husband’s arms and Jen was in the bathroom. Brock was right outside talking to her through the door.
When the door opened they all jumped. It was starting.
“Carol,” Brent said.
Normally the mentors would be in the room waiting with the couple that was about to face the spanking bench, but when there were a lot of people like now, they waited outside. As Brent had suggested, as soon as the door closed behind Carol and Crystal, she put in her headphones and blasted her music.
The music through her headphones wasn’t enough. Every now and then she could hear Carol cry out. Not in her usual smart ass way, but with a desperate growl of sheer pain. She was glad that she was next and not one of the other girls, having to wait and listen to even more.
Soon enough, the door opened again. “Erin,” Brent said. It felt like she was walking on someone else’s legs as she moved through the doorway and across the room to the bench. The titters of the crowd reached her ears, but she didn’t look. There was no way that she could do this if she had to imagine the faces that were sitting there enjoying her fate. Her heart lurched when she saw Diana standing behind the bench waiting to help; to sooth and to give her strength. Rick was there, too, to support Zach, whose role was no less harrowing. In some ways, she thought it was worse.
It was the most humiliated she had ever felt; to have her bottom bared in front of the town. She trembled, partly from the cool breeze that wafted over her bare skin when Zach lowered her panties, but mostly with the cold fear of what was about to happen. Thank God he didn’t ask her, as he usually did when he was about to paddle her, to spread her legs. There wasn’t much modesty involved with being bent over a bench with your ass out in front of the same people you would see in the school grounds or at church. At least they wouldn’t be getting a peak at her bits.